Ken forced himself forward even as every instinct in him screamed run. His legs felt heavy, stiff, almost unwilling. Fear ate at the back of his mind with cold teeth, telling him this creature shouldn't be fought — it should be escaped, avoided.
But Ken wasn't built like that.
He exhaled sharply, fingers curling.
Two crescent-shaped sickles slid into his palms, their edges already reflecting the faint glimmer of his blood-red energy.
The creature didn't react.
Ken grounded his stance. And then the air snapped. A deep, crimson flare erupted from his arms, veins glowing red to his fingertips as the energy spiraled into the sickles.
Crimson Blood Gear — Scarlet Reap.
Ken moved.
He dashed in a blur, the ground splitting beneath his feet, and swung both sickles in a wide arc. A sweeping tide of crimson energy exploded outward, ripping the air itself apart as it surged toward the creature. The mist in its wake shimmered, vibrating violently like a thousand whispers trapped inside.
The attack connected.
It tore through the creature's body, a perfect cut. The force split the ground behind it, carving a deep trench tens of meters long.
But the creature didn't fall. It wasn't even pushed back. The wound on its torso… didn't bleed. It simply tore open like fabric, exposing a pitch-black interior where organs should've been.
Ken froze for half a heartbeat. Then he exhaled sharply. He spun again.
Crimson Blood Gear — Blood Harvest.
A vortex of crimson energy spiraled around him as he slashed repeatedly, each cut birthing ghostly tendrils that whipped forward like hungry serpents. They lashed onto the creature's arms, legs, torso — trying to drain whatever passed for its life force.
The creature finally moved.
Its head tilted. Its stitched mouth twitched. And its fingers split into branching claws.
The tendrils tightened, but the creature simply stepped forward, passing through them like they were smoke.
The whirl of energy shattered.
Ken's eyes widened. His instincts screamed. He jumped back right as the creature swung its arm.
It tore through the air like a blade of reality itself, and the shockwave that followed ripped apart a line of buildings behind Ken half a kilometer away.
He barely ducked under the second swing. The ground behind him split open, a jagged wound tearing across the landscape.
The creature didn't rush him. It didn't posture. It didn't roar. It simply walked.
Ken's heartbeat thundered.
Crimson Blood Gear — Hemorrhage Strike.
He vanished. His speed tripled, electricity from friction snapping around him as he reappeared right under the creature's guard. One sickle whipped upward toward its jaw, the other slicing toward its ribs. Each slash was imbued with condensed internal bleeding energy.
The blades connected. They cut deep. The creature's stitched mouth stretched into a small, unnatural smile.
Ken barely had time to register it before the creature's hand blurred.
A backhand.
Ken felt his ribs explode with pain before his vision blurred into a smear of motion. He flew across the ground, smashing through the remains of a derelict structure before stopping somewhere in the rubble, coughing blood.
The creature stepped forward again, still silent, still slow.
Ken forced himself up. He wasn't done. Not even close. He spread the sickles wide, energy spiraling violently around them as he bent his knees.
Crimson Blood Gear — Veinburst Dash.
A technique that concentrated every drop of crimson energy into speed. He shot forward like a red comet, the ground exploding beneath him. Dust kicked up in violent storms as he zig-zagged, slashing from every angle — fast enough that his own afterimages attacked with him.
Crimson arcs filled the field. Hundreds. Each one strong enough to level steel bunkers.
The creature stood still. It let the attacks carve into it. It let the crimson mist consume its silhouette.
Ken's lungs burned. His arms ached.
Finally, after a full thirty seconds of relentless carnage, he skidded back, panting. The creature remained standing.
Its body shredded with cut, but none bled. None weakened it. The wounds dangled open like empty voids, swallowing the crimson light around them.
Then the creature finally reacted.
Its head cracked to the side unnaturally.
Its fingers curled.
The creature moved. Ken barely had time to cross his sickles before the creature's palm slammed into them, sending a shock through his entire skeleton. The impact launched him back, spinning through the air.
He crashed, rolled, slid, and finally stopped in a crater of his own body. Blood filled his mouth, but he forced himself to get up. He had to
The creature lunged again, its clawed-out sockets leaking darkness like smoke swirling in reverse, dragging the light toward itself. Its movement wasn't fast this time, it was wrong, like every step skipped a frame of reality. Ken met it head-on, crossing his sickles, crimson arcs bursting from the blades as he spun into a tornado of red light. Scarlet Reap carved through the air, splitting the ground into long trenches, but the creature slid past each strike like its body was made of liquid bone.
Ken clicked his heel into the ground and blood manipulation surged. Crimson threads erupted from the dirt—veins he forced out of his own blood pooled beneath the soil—snapping upward like barbed hounds. They lunged at the creature, sinking teeth into its limbs. For a moment, he felt resistance.
Then the creature just jerked once. Ken's hounds exploded into mist.
The shockwave hurled Ken back, boots dragging sparks against the ground. He stabilized, spinning into a low stance, wrists bleeding from the recoil. He didn't wipe the blood—he needed it. He slammed his palm against the earth, letting droplets scatter. Each droplet twitched, twisted, stretched into a thin crimson blade hovering around him like a rotating halo.
The creature charged again.
Ken flicked his wrist.
The airborne blades shot forward, slicing in a spiraling array like a blooming flower of death. They cut cleanly, passing through the creature as if carving fog. But the ground behind it tore open from the force, debris exploding upward like volcanic ash.
Ken snarled under his breath, though he never stopped moving. He sprinted, weaving between the collapsing chunks of earth, sickles whirling in tight crescents. He closed in, dashed under the creature's arm, slid across the ground, and carved upward.
A shock of crimson erupted. The creature's torso split—but instead of flesh, it was like peeling open a cocoon made of shadows. The wound didn't bleed; it just… folded shut, like fabric stitching back by itself.
Ken didn't hesitate. He clapped his hands together, and blood manipulation screamed to life. His own blood burst from his pores—painful, hot—forming into massive serpentine whips. They crashed into the creature, coiling around its limbs, anchoring it to the ground.
Ken heaved.
The creature actually budged.
For one fragile second, Ken held it down.
Then its head twitched. No eyes. Only darkness. A hollow skull with claw marks gouged deep, and yet he felt … watched.
The creature tore one hand free. Its arm didn't move. Reality moved around it. The hand was suddenly buried in Ken's stomach.
He didn't even see it. Just impact. Breath gone. Spine bending backward.
His hands trembled as he pushed himself up, wiping nothing away. Too weak. Too slow. He could feel it. With every second, the gap between them grew wider and wider, like the creature wasn't just fighting him—it was learning him.
Ken forced himself to stand, sickles trembling in his grip. He exhaled shakily.
How long until the others arrive?
How long can he hold this thing alone?
His blood answered before he could: not long.
Ken tore open both his palms with the edge of his sickle. Blood gushed, but he didn't waste a drop. The crimson liquor floated before him, twisting into a massive curved blade the size of a small car—unstable, shaking, violent.
He roared from the pressure as he swung his arm.
The monolithic blood-blade surged forward in a crashing wave, dragging the air with it, ripping grass, stone, and trees into dust. The creature met it with a single raised hand.
The sky split with the impact.
Ken's attack shattered, spraying into a red storm.
Before the crimson mist even touched the ground, Ken was behind it—sprinting, sliding low, sickles humming. He crossed them mid-dash, forming an "X" of crimson energy so bright the shadows recoiled.
He slashed upward.
The creature's chest tore again. This time Ken forced his blood into the wound, exploding it from inside. The creature stumbled. Its form flickered. A ripple spread through its body like something underneath was waking.
Ken didn't wait. He spun violently, using his own blood as anchors to yank himself around the battlefield at speeds far above his normal limits. He kicked off a chunk of floating debris, flipping midair, sickles whistling in a killer arc—
A hand appeared beside his face.
Ken barely blocked.
The impact sent a sonic boom through the air, ripping up the terrain for miles, and Ken was launched again, skipping across the earth like a stone across water. He slammed into a fractured ridge, embedding into it until the rock cracked around him like a spiderweb.
He gasped, chest heaving, entire body burning.
The creature just stood there. Silent. Perfectly still. As if it hadn't even exerted effort.
Ken spat blood, bending forward, his vision blurring.
Doesn't matter.
He pushed off the rock.
He sprinted again.
This time he didn't aim for damage. He aimed for speed—turning the battlefield into a scarlet storm. Blood constructs erupted behind him: wolves made of liquid crimson, jagged blood stakes raining down from above, blades that sliced the air just by existing.
The creature walked through them.
Every strike passed through empty space.
Ken kept moving. Faster. Harder. His muscles tore, repaired, tore again. The world became a blur of red and black as he danced around the creature, carving patterns in the air like he was trying to write a new reality with blood.
The creature's head tilted.
It raised its hand.
Ken's instincts screamed.
He dug his heel into the earth and ripped every drop of blood he'd spilled back toward himself—forming a dome of crimson around him in a split second.
The creature tapped the air in front of its chest.
Just a tap.
The world detonated.
Ken's blood dome shattered. He couldn't feel his legs. But the creature was already there.
Standing on the broken cliff, watching him with those gouged-out sockets.